Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Who are you to say that America is best? On that sarcastic note, you need to read James Lileks to celebrate the 4th just in case you think you're losing your mind when you watch the news and read the newspaper. Here's a few pithy quotes:

No, nothing happens. Here. It happens elsewhere, but it can always be explained away, run through that perversely creative Justify-O-Matic that blames radical murderous doctors on the overthrow of Saddam – as if a terror campaign waged by Iran would make doctors at the Mayo Clinic lay down their scalpels and set off nailbombs in an Iranian community in LA.

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Mr. Zinn would rather we pledge allegiance to the human race, rather than the petty temporary arrangements we call nations.

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I’ve gotten to the point where I imagine, almost simultaneous with the event, what the reaction will be among those who find evidence of terrorism both maddeningly inconvenient and perversely heartening – they must downplay the event lest the dark gang of warmongers use the crime to terrify the bedwetters – you know, all those people who believe in the bogeyman of global jihad - but at the same time, the attacks prove that we’ve not only failed to stop “terrorism,” we have made it worse by, well, trying to stop terrorism. Oh, it can be stopped, if the proper postures are assumed, but on we go with our chests out and our manhood in our hand, looking for fights. As Hitchens put it in this recent piece, there are many who can’t quite get on board with the whole anti-caliphate gig, since the people running the show are probably motivated by racism. Even if it’s true, it’s like saying the people who wanted to fight Hitler did so because they couldn’t stand German opera.